Snowden: NSA is ‘in bed with the Germans’

A demonstrator wears a paper bag depicting former US spy agency NSA contractor Edward Snowden after a support protest in Berlin July 4, 2013 (Reuters / Tobias Schwarz) / Reuters

US fugitive Edward Snowden has accused Germany and the US of partnering in spy intelligence operations, revealing that cooperation between the countries is closer than German indignation would indicate, Der Spiegel magazine reported.

“They are in bed with the Germans, just like with most other
Western states,” the German magazine quotes Snowden as
saying, adding that the NSA’s has a Foreign Affairs Directorate
which is responsible for cooperation with other countries.

Partnerships are orchestrated in ways that allow other countries
to “insulate their political leaders from the backlash,”
according to Snowden, providing a buffer between politicians and
the illegal methods of snooping. He accused the collaboration of
grievously “violating global privacy.”

“Other agencies don't ask us where we got the information from
and we don't ask them. That way they can protect their top
politicians from the backlash in case it emerges how massively
people's privacy is abused worldwide,” he said.

Snowden gave the interview to a cipher expert and a documentary
filmmaker with the help of encrypted emails shortly before he
rose to global fame, Der Spiegel reported.

The publication recollected that the US Army is simultaneously in
the process of building a base in Wiesbaden, southwest Germany,
claiming it will be used as an intelligence center by the NSA.

The four-story bug-proof spying center is made from imported
American materials and costs $119 million. Its construction will
allow for the closure of over 40 existing sites across in
Heidelberg, Mannheim and Darmstadt, US Army Garrison Wiesbaden
spokeswoman Anemone Rueger told Stars and Stripes.

The Der Spiegel report also indicates that the German Federal
Intelligence Service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) and NSA
work very closely together.

It was revealed at the end of June that the US combs through half a billion of German phone calls,
emails and text messages on a monthly basis.

An earlier report by Der Spiegel, also based on revelations by
Snowden, revealed that the NSA bugged EU diplomatic offices and
gained access to EU internal computer networks.

Chancellor Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert said that this
would constitute intolerable behavior if proven.

“If it is confirmed that diplomatic representations of the
European Union and individual European countries have been spied
upon, we will clearly say that bugging friends is
unacceptable,” said Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman,
Steffen Seibert.
“We are no longer in the Cold War,” he said.

Germans are particularly sensitive about eavesdropping because of
the hangover from the intrusive surveillance state which
characterized the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR) and
Nazi era totalitarianism.

The Der Spiegel report claims that the NSA provides the BND with
analysis tools to monitor data passing through German territory.
Opposition parties insisted when revelations were made about the
extent of espionage that somebody in Merkel's office, where the
German intelligence agencies are coordinated, must have known
what was going on.

BND head Gerhard Schindler confirmed the existence of the two
country’s intelligence partnerships during a meeting with members
of the German parliament’s control committee specifically for
overseeing intelligence issues, according to Der Spiegel.

The BND is legally allowed to look through 20 percent of
transnational communications, in addition to monitoring internet
search terms and telecommunications, Deutsche Welle wrote on June
30, while the US can essentially capitalize on Germany’s data
collection packets. The cooperation includes the passing of data
over areas deemed crisis regions.

The BND lacks the capacity to fully use its legally allowed
monitoring. Der Spiegel reported that the agency is currently
only monitoring only about 5 percent of data traffic, but is
planning to expand its server, capacity and staffing in order to
be more effective.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which
overlooks domestic counter-espionage, is currently investigating
whether the NSA has access to German Internet traffic. A
preliminary analysis was inconclusive.

“So far, we have no information that Internet nodes in Germany
have been spied on by the NSA,” said Hans-Georg Maassen, the
president of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden fled the US in May a few weeks
before his first leaks were published by the Guardian. He is
believed to have been holed up in Moscow airport since June 23
and initially made asylum requests to 20 countries, including
Germany, followed by a further six.

Snowden was refused asylum in Germany on the grounds that asylum
requests must be made on German soil.

A spokesman of the Interior Minister said, “the German right
of residence principally entails the possibility of acceptance
from abroad, if this seems necessary for international legal or
urgent humanitarian reasons, or for the ensuring of political
interests of the federal republic of Germany. This needs to be
examined thoroughly in the case of Mr. Snowden.”